Listening to Rick and to Reason
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Kevin Godbee - Jan 9, 2017
- 6 min read
Fred Brown
If you haven’t read Rick Newcombe’s The FDA’s Unauthorized War on Pipes and Cigars at Reason.com you should right now. The piece appeared Dec. 13 on the web site and I can’t stop thinking about just how good that essay really is.
The deck (secondary headline for those of you who are not familiar with newspaper composition headline jargon) is, "The FDA is extending the meaning of the Tobacco Control Act to cover cigars, pipe tobacco, and even pipes."
Every Congressman worth a vote should read Newcombe’s composition. It absolutely describes the issue of government overreach, a government out of control and intruding into the lives of individuals as well as entire business enterprises.
The first three paragraphs in Newcombe’s story explains the situation in our world so succinctly. Rick’s story is the best I have read on the subject yet:
"There are more than 2,000 cigar and pipe stores currently operating in this country, employing 35,000 Americans, and the FDA has put them all on notice that they need to stop doing business as usual and start filling their inventory with non-tobacco products. The situation is so bad that the three small trade groups representing cigars and pipes have been forced to file a lawsuit in federal court in Washington, D.C.
"The FDA wants for anyone hand-rolling cigars to register with the government; same with artisan pipe makers. Tobacconists would no longer be able to offer their store’s unique blends without special permission, and no cigar or pipe tobacco introduced after 2007 would have much of a chance of being allowed into the marketplace.
"When representatives of the cigar and pipe industries pointed out to the FDA that these regulations would effectively put hundreds of stores out of business, their reply was frightening. As quoted in the lawsuit filed against the government, the ‘FDA’s response to these small businesses is that they would be able to shift shelf space and other activities to non-tobacco products.’"
Every regulator in Washington should read this piece and think about his own pastime and how it might feel to have it strangled by regulations.
Who in his right mind thinks that these draconian FDA rules have anything to do with preventing children from smoking cigarettes, the original intention of the so-called Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act?
When is the last time you or anyone else has seen a child walk into a tobacconist B&M and order up a $25 cigar or a $100 pipe? Cigars and pipes are not the problem here. Over-regulation, mission creep and creeps in the bureaucratic world are the problem.
It is my fervent hope that these awful regulations get overturned this new year. It would be a wonderful gift to the U.S. and to entrepreneurs everywhere. Maybe there will be some enlightenment in 2017.
And should that happen, we can thank Rick Newcombe and Reason.com for putting together a clarifying piece on the issue and to the website for publishing the story.
If we must live under a government yoke then give me liberty or give me death, to quote a little historical hyperbole.
And another thing:
Over the holidays, I took the time to look over my pipe collection. As many of you do, I rubbed the bowls of my pipes, and thought of where I was in my life at the time I purchased a particular briar. My pipes are not only part of my life, but also they have interacted, have moved me forward, helped me to see more clearly, and given me time to reflect on a particularly touchy issue.
Pipes are more than mere pieces of wood in which we stuff the leaf of joy. They become part of us, part of our lives, part of our surroundings. Family!
How can that be? I’ve asked myself that so many times. How can a simple (well, I’m not talking about those gorgeous handmade artisanal pipes) briar harbor such meaning, such stature?
Without becoming too Jungian in psychoanalyzing reasons for smoking a pipe, I think it must do with our need to be alone with our thoughts, to close out the clank and clamor of life.
Or, it might be that our pipes bring us together with some of the best people on earth, pipe smokers, the mind workers of the world.
On some days, I don’t smoke my pipe. I tally that up to getting older. In my youth, a pound of tobacco a week was de rigueur for my pipes. It was demanded!
Naturally, as one ages, we become less driven, perhaps. At least that has been my experience. After seven decades on this orb, I feel a certain pressure to slow my pace, to think more than to react, to be less obsessed.
My hope for my fellow pipe smokers this year is for new and wonderful additions to collections, to find a tobacco that not only speaks to you personally but sings aloud.
My hope is that you find fulfillment in your pipes and tobacco and that we all survive another year in health and goodwill.
These are exciting times for pipe smokers. It’s rich in discovery. Genius abounds with brilliant tobacco blenders and simply amazing pipe carvers.
But we also live in a stressful world. Outside and outsized forces cleave to the pipes and tobacco culture and threaten to interrupt our joy and happiness. Even destroy the elegance of the practice entirely.
It is, perhaps, a critical moment in our history. I, for one, refuse to give in. We are endowed with certain unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (I know that’s schmaltzy, but it is straight from the nation’s Declaration of Independence).
Without becoming too Jeffersonian, these rights were endowed to us by our Creator, and cannot be taken away by any government or agency of government.
Okay, history lesson over. It is established that we have these rights, and as I perceive it, smoking my pipe is not taking away someone else’s rights. I am not encouraging children to take up pipe smoking or to purchase cigars by the box.
I am simply stating for the record that this is my pleasure, my pursuit of happiness, and you are free of course to follow your bliss and happiness. Mine is in Lady Nicotine.
In working on this piece, I ran across a story in The New Yorker Magazine discussing the smoking issues of the time, that time being 1925 in the New York Public Library.
Some very well-known authors of the day who enjoyed smoking while they worked became upset that they could not smoke in the big library in New York. So, The New Yorker Magazine took up the issue and managed to get a room set aside in the library’s quiet folds for authors to enjoy smokes while they worked.
But, it took the magazine and its nicotine supporters until 1954 to coax the library into establishing a smoking room for writers.
That lasted until the early 1970s when again the library banned smoking in its august rooms.
And, of course, there is no smoking today in the New York Public Library, regardless of whether you are a writer.
I wonder if the Rick Newcombe piece on FDA’s overreach is in the New York Public Library?
If so, has anyone read it?
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Written by Kevin Godbee
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Before we begin, I should tell you: this tobacco review is being written by an A.I. Not the fancy new GPTs or their ilk; no, this is last century’s meat-and-bone, all-organic model. To be fair, a large part of what we call knowledge is merely the accumulated perceptions and impressions gathered from a life wandered through, synthesized into a spongy mass of what-it-is-that-we-think-that-we-know. The algorithm for this prompt is simple enough: pump thousands of bowls of smoldering plant matter into a gaping maw, cross-reference the chemical sensations with all other matter previously ingested or inhaled, sieve it all through the diffuse and fractal twin lens of memory and emotion, and churn out a panoply of adjectives that attempts to convey the sensations to someone who hasn’t experienced it yet. Odds are that a diligently trained monkey could succeed half the time; if this reviewer nears fifty-one percent then that would qualify as an unrivaled success. There must have been some similar musings perambulating through the mind of Per Jensen when he began his mad scientist routine at Sutliff with the Pipe Force project, which brings us to the current mixture under the microscope—Sutliff’s Pipe Force: Episode I. Here again are the unusual ingredients that engendered the series, with the stoved Rustica being the defining voice in this composition. From the tin: The Latakia-forward English mixture offers plenty of smoky flavor from the fire-cured leaf, which is artfully harmonized with floral, earthy Stoved Rustica. A mixture of high-grade Virginias imparts a natural sweetness. Katerini, the sole Oriental component, offers herb and spice notes bringing complexity and nuance to the flavor profile. It’s certainly Latakia-forward, with the stoved Rustica doubling up on the rhythm section like a second bassist. A first whiff from the tin releases the aromas of shoe leather and hide glue in a base of clay soil with a campfire wafted over it like last night’s beach party. Once it’s been accustomed to oxygen again, subtle hints of sweetness poke through from the Virginias: lemon rind, light milk chocolate, the dregs of a peaty Scotch, and muddled cherry. Old regulars like fresh-sawn oak and tilled earth are there, of course, with distinct notes of truffle, creosote, damp peat, and pine bark mulch. As an aside, I’ve been re-potting my camellias and the similarity of aroma to the ericaceous soil mix is notable; the Katerini really brings the unique depth of its vegetal complexion when supported by the Rustica and afforded more voice in the mix. The smoky Cyprian Latakia, in turn, is backed by equal earthiness from the Rustica, which overall exhibits a profile similar to dark-fired Kentucky; it leans more toward the woody and vegetal end of that spectrum, echoing and amplifying those traits of the other constituents. The tobacco is presented pressed and cut into a couple of thick, hearty flakes in the tin, lightly moist and easily crumbled to prepare—I prefer mine with a bit of drying time. The out-of-this-world tin art for this episode in the series is Major O’Meara smoking a cavalier. In the absence of confirmation, I’m going to hazard a guess he’s of the Ithklur species. The first taste from the light is sweet, with hints of that milk chocolate dancing around the edges. The Virginia leads the smoke through the top of the bowl, and orchestrates it well. Thoroughly smoky with lemony, grassy highlights from the Virginia spectrum, it soon segues into the mid-bowl profile: heartier, smokier, with the flavor leaning to the mildly acrid and tangy tinge that is the campfire-esque signature of English blends. Caution advised, it can turn overly bitter if pushed—this is where one’s sipping technique is required to maintain the fullness of flavor through to the heel. I did tend toward a lot of relights, though it may have as much to do with technique as with the blend. Pacing is also important as the nicotine starts to manifest; though the Rustica’s contribution has been tempered well by the stoving, it can certainly upend an empty stomach. At the end of every bowl, the mouthfeel somehow gets better. The balance of sugars in the tobaccos would seem to be spot-on in this regard. I started out my tasting in cobs, then cut short an unpleasant bowl in a meer, and finally landed on my best instrument with the lovely Dunhill 4427 pictured, a quaint group 4 shell briar with a gentle curve and Cumberland stem supporting a perfectly executed acorn bowl. It surprised me here, as I’ve learned through the years that I generally have the best experience with English blends in large, wide bowls. With this blend it seems that to get the best out of the Katerini’s somewhat diaphanous influence the smaller bowl fared much better. Room note is very English, so the company you keep will either love it or hate it, and it doesn’t linger too much. I find it paired best with a strong coffee; Sumatran beans complement the flavors well, as do Ethiopian if a lighter brew is preferred. Overall impressions of the blend are that it’s a curiously interesting take on the English genre, almost a reductive reconstruction of the theme using the unique components. This blend, if nothing else, expanded my vocabulary of sense perceptions with the uniquely treated leaf. While the average human can distinguish approximately one trillion (1,000,000,000,000!) different aromas, multiplied by seven basic tastes, and wholly dependent on variables from body chemistry to atmospheric conditions, our overworked and underpaid simian brains can’t effectively catalog them all. Our pet adding machines are exceedingly good at this, however, and someday soon they’ll be the ultimate and unequivocal authority on what something tastes, smells, looks, or even feels like. Until that time, friends, revel in the moments that can be stolen to savor over a bowl of Pipe Force: Episode I.
A magnificent piece on top of Rick’s magnificent piece!
hp
les
Well said, and thank you for your expressions. I, too, have just read Rick Newcombe’s essay on the matter, and hope both articles find wide reach.
Someone needs to get Arnie on board as the spokesman for the this.
Is there any update on the potential repeal of the FDA regulations that are the subject of Rick Newcombe’s essay?